Chasing After Clouds
by zulka
Summary: [Reposted TalaxJulia AU] An usurper sits on the throne, while the dragon keeps watch over the land. Tala is running away from his destiny, while Julia thinks him a coward and Emily wants revenge. Kai is an unknown variable full of dark shadows and secrets, and together all four play a role in fulfilling a prophecy, if only Tala would make up his mind.
1. Chapter 1

**Notes:** I wrote this a very long time ago. At first it had been just a little oneshot that was more like the fragment of a story. I was trying for a different type of description. But lately I've been thinking about this a lot and a plot actually formed and I decided to follow that little bunny and see what happens. It should be a short story.

It's a fantasy that is darkish, and dirty. It is meant to be a dark **Fairytale**.

 **Warnings:** There is foul language, mentions of drugs, sex, murder, depression, and suicide. Nothing too graphic but if you find it not suitable to your taste, then don't read. This is a revised chapter one.

I will be using the original Japanese names for some of the characters. This story does have a main song by the smashing pumpkins 'the beginning is the end is the beginning', which are the lyrics present in italics at the beginning and the end.

Names: Yuriy **(Tala)** , Takao **(Tyson)** , Boris **(Bryan)** , Sergei **(Spencer)** , Ralf **(Robert)** , Hitoshi **(Hiro)** , Borg( **Boris** ), Mao **(Mariah)** , Rai **(Lee)** , Giancarlo( **Enrique)** , Daitenji **(Mr. Dickinson)** , and I think that's it. if others crop up i'll let you know.

Pairings: Mainly Yuriy(Tala)xJulia, with a side of Max/Emily

The original oneshot/fragment was dedicated to Lamanth, as of now this story is still dedicated to Lamanth.

* * *

 **Chasing after Clouds**  
by: zulka

 _The world is lost and blown  
And we are flesh and blood disintegrate  
With no more to hate_

* * *

Shattered glass and ads of fast food places that were half faded looked at her in the face. Rundown buildings were littered with graffiti and broken windows—that looked more like eyes than anything. She passed through all of them, made her way to the marching crowd of students with neon green hair and electric blue. Ripped torn jeans and fishnets were all the rage along with the New Age music of acid lyrics and ear shattering guitars that made one bleed blood instead of tears.

The queen had slit her wrists on the day of her wedding and landed on broken flowers. That had been the day before. But the world didn't care. Sunlight filtered through the dark clouds of smoke and looked a sickly red. The sky had been bleeding since the day she was born.

The city fell into black, grey and white and strangely enough red was the ruling color of all. She figured it was because so much damned blood had been spilled back in history.

"Fucker over there thinks he's all the shit." Her friend whispered in that throaty voice that had screamed a little too much. Her hair was bright highlighter yellow and more body art than human along with the damn chains.

She sneered through grimy orange bangs, "He is shit. Just like every other motherfucker here." They passed like ghosts over the half filled bottles of beer and half naked people with green skin. Trash. She wondered who would be broken as a gift to the new deities. They too were trash.

Her friend snickered; she had lived for this shattering day when she would spit upon the holy ground. She pushed her orange bangs from her eyes which were vibrant dead green and ran a hand through her chopped brown hair. They were the children of doom. Born into a shattered earth of brown sludge and ash.

"See." She whispered to her friend as the sun went down to die another death and left the moon ruling in a shadowy haze. They had stopped and watched the cracks in the dirty cement.

"They were sin and fucking." She whispered as they walked into the grounds. Her friend nodded as they looked to the altar. "The temple is a fucking whorehouse and the oracles are the fucking sluts." With see through cloth and enchanting eyes that foretold of death with sex.

"And it's time to replace old with new." Her friend whispered in that raspy chains on concrete voice that made her shudder.

When she had been little she had looked for dream illusions and white puffy clouds only to find scars and fake _i love you's_ from sex obsessed males. But she was poison love of acid taste. No name faces that went through her with passion to leave her among crackling dying fires the next night. But she had always been echoes of forgotten dirty memories of flesh. And she wished to be that no more.

Smirking she watched her friend _spitcrouchandpee_ on the dirty 'holy' ground. Fuck the temple and its whores. Pleasure was pain and acid screeching lyrics of crystal meth. She walked away and joined her friend as they left the flashing building. To stay would allow life to betray them to death.

She was echo and she waved goodbyes as they parted for the remainder of the day.

"Fan-fucking-tastic." She whispered as she turned into the alleys of cigar smoke and too sweet incense the color of death.

But she was poison with no antidote. So she kept walking through the smoky grey haze that smelled of musk and aftershave. When she saw him she knew who he was. Princess of ice joined with the King of fire and produced a bastard child, last to a line of kings. With flaming hair and icy eyes that froze her to her spot. His gaze was predatory and wolf like, more animal than man. She approached him slowly. His eyes, the only things that moved to follow her. Their paths had crossed more than once and in many lives. He was the nightmare of her child years—a boy fading to charred bones. He was the crush of her teenage years—the man boy that lived and survived her poison kiss. She stood before him in black skirt and fishnet shirt that covered sun kissed skin.

He stood and looked away from jaded eyes that made his heart beat with the life he was born without. He was king of kings, last to a line devoured by a vulture queen. She was the light in childhood dreams and the death of teenage years.

He was ice and water fresh.

She was poison dead.

They were the children of doom. Born to a world crushed and drained. She sat next to him, even though he was standing and looking to the greenish haze of cigar smoke and too sweet incense. Moonshine was yellow and dirty like the trash they all were. She knew and he knew. So he walked and she followed like the little lost puppy she had become when she started wishing upon dying stars. He led because he was a king of nothing but pain and useless royal blood. Because it was his wretched destiny.

He walked away from the world and into the ash prairies where he sat. She sat next to him and followed his gaze to the disintegrating world, all flesh, sin, and death. She sneered because she lost her smile to the first fake _iloveyou_.

Their world had always burned. It burned and people yelled while others laughed. Living and breathing misery. It was all it was. Burn…live…burn…live…die.

She turned to look at him and raised a scarred hand to touch his alabaster skin. He was marble carved. She was corrupted life. He turned to look at jaded eyes of green meadows that made him live. She was Julia, bright dead life. He was Yuriy, a throne less king.

He returned her kiss of poison with one of ice and water fresh. And he sneered at her because his kiss was sweet unadulterated honey. The type that made you thirsty for more. But she smiled as she turned to look at the shattered world with him. Because she was acid poison and he was water fresh.

* * *

 _And in your darkest hour  
I hold secrets flame  
We can watch the world devoured in its pain_

* * *

Original Author's note: When I first wrote this, I had been thinking of fluff and it didn't work. But as of now, as I said above, it has turned into a dark YuriyxJulia romance fairytale story. I hope you guys enjoyed and stick with me to see it to its end. Please review! Let me know what you think.

2018: the lyrics are from the smashing pumpkins. I will continue to repost this story, slowly. I still want to finish it. :D


	2. Chapter 2

**II.**

 _For of sugar and ice,_  
 _I am made. I am made_

.

She sighed. Her body felt heavy, and at the same time she felt like a luminescent bubble, floating over the red crumbling dirty city. She could hear the screams, and the crying of the lost children and the dying women and men. But at the moment, she didn't care. All she cared about was that Yuriy was with her, that his marble hands were raising goosebumps on her sensitive skin.

She felt like light, brilliant and blinding. She wasn't sure where she ended and began. She was sure she was encompassing all of him, and the grimy smelling room. She saw shadows flitting beneath her eyelids. She took a deep breath as if she had been in the dark blue sea. Yuriy chuckled and it was like water running over smooth rocks.

She sighed. "I hate you." But she loved the way his body fit with hers, sticking perfectly to each other in a way that she had always found repulsive.

The darkness coiled around them, deep and damp. It made her shiver. "The others were looking for you."

His eyes, the color she imagined the sky had once been, looked at her with annoyance and mockery. He did not say anything. He merely nuzzled her neck like a love starved dog. He was always so cold, like the snow, but he always made her feel as hot as the fucking sun. That damn bloody looking sun.

"Julia" his whisper was like birds fluttering. She hated it. Fucking hated it.

Yuriy looked at her and knew that in another time she would have been beautiful. But her mouth was set in a constant sneer, and her eyes were cynical, dirty, and dead. He ran his cold hand through her hair, limp brown hair that resembled the decaying rotting trees.

"You're beautiful Julia." He whispered and felt her shiver. The darkness was growing heavier around them. Outside the moon was trying in vain to give light but all the smoke made her attempts fail horribly, making a sallow haze instead.

"I'll meet them tomorrow." He told her, and his voice was like a blunt knife. All threat but no danger. It made her sick and she snarled.

"You fucking coward." Julia hated cowards. She hated the fucking people who spoke bright words with illusion of depth. She despised them and cursed them every day; she lighted candles and prayed for their destruction. That's the only thing she asked for nowadays, when the sun sank down and drowned in the dark red sea she only prayed for destruction. She wanted to hear the people scream in agony and fear.

Yuriy's eyes narrowed, meeting her judging gaze. "He knows we're coming." His words were like a cold winter wind, snapping at her all the way down to her bones, cutting. But all she could think about was brown hair and unfathomable chocolate eyes and a scream so agonizing it made her insides wither. Her heart full of spidery cracks finally fell apart like the glass vase Judy had.

"How?" her whisper was like the scurrying dead leaves and shadows passed over her face as she turned from him to the window.

"He just does. The dragon tells him everything. He knows I am coming. He knew it the moment Mariam killed herself. Probably even before."

Mariam had deep ocean hair and her eyes had been full of brilliant green leaves. But her body was decaying flesh, rotting with every passing second. The luminescent queen had thrown herself from the highest tower, after her scarlet blood had drenched her sheer white gown. She fell and fragmented at the bottom, all her pretty bones twisted. Mathilda had told her she had never seen anything more beautiful. Julia had laughed. The heart she no longer possessed would have been sad and crying making itself soggy with salt water.

It was quiet, and the darkness twisted around them, damp and stale, winding around them tighter and tighter. "What are you gonna do?"

His eyes were cold like glaciers and her teeth chattered just by looking at them. The darkness felt heavier then, and colder like hail falling.

He said nothing and she felt herself hate him more for the damn stupid silence that felt like chains around her, binding her to him and his wretched destiny, to his stupid royal blood that was as useful as the fucking moon and its attempts at moonlight.

"We're leaving tomorrow, when the sun sets." His sky eyes held a challenge and a promise she was sure he wasn't aware of. But Julia was no needy child. Promises were trash to her, words that limped around because they were not whole enough. But she did crave blood, lots of it and only from a certain man.

.

Emily stared at the gray temple from a safe distance. Distaste filled her mouth with such bitterness that she couldn't even swallow. She spit at the ashy cement. The students were littered around, laughing and drinking to their deaths.

From afar she could hear the scratchy voice of a male lead singer, the guitar chords ripping at her eardrums. She laughed then, like a door creaking, about to fall. The pallid moonlight, weak and pathetic gave the temple a decrepit look. But Emily knew better, the crumbling pillars were still standing strong. She wanted to break them. Shatter them down to the bleak black earth. Wanted to make those priests wet themselves with fear and outrage, she wanted to kill them and spill their rust colored blood all over the marble steps that shone brighter than the stupid moon.

She had seen Julia earlier, as they marched with the idiots who wanted to sacrifice themselves to the priests and the bloody oracles. Those fucking bloody oracles with their see through gowns, and glassy eyes where Emily could see her own reflection but never theirs.

She had gazed upon glassy chocolate eyes that didn't see her, eyes that hadn't seen anything except sweet drugged pleasure that sickened Emily so so much. It made Emily want to throw up the food she didn't eat and cry the tears she promised Max when she was four years old.

"Still here?" The voice coiled around her like a snake, poised and ready to strike. But charming nonetheless.

He was sitting there, in that expanse of deep deep darkness that made her skin crawl. But his skin was so pale he gave off his own repugnant incandescent light.

"Kai," she spat his name like chains smashing against the ground. It burned her tongue to even say it. Her hatred for this boy was as vast as the damn sky.

Kai watched her with those hawk like eyes, impassive, still as a statue. She wondered how long he had been there, sitting like a snake ready to kill. He uncoiled himself from the darkness, and stepped into the pasty moonlight. All his ugly shine gone and replaced with scattering shadows that danced around him.

Emily could see his failures dripping from him like water. It disgusted her.

"Don't tell me you marched with us today." She hissed.

He didn't answer, standing so still that she could have sworn he wasn't a real person. But he was staring at the temple. "I watched." He rasped.

Emily sneered at him. Her arms crossing over her chest.

"You ripped her heart out." She whispered venomously, her words like the sting of a scorpion, deadly. She turned then, she couldn't be in his presence. It sickened her more than the damn temple, more than the priests and the glassy eyed oracles. She would kill herself if she had to stay with him a second longer. Already she could feel her insides begin to shrivel.

Kai watched her leave, her highlighter yellow hair shining, blending with the electric blue of the students that still lingered, laughing and toasting to death with sex. The acid lyrics of some band played in the distance.

Decayed wine eyes looked to the temple and remembered rich brown eyes full of laughter, eyes that had filled with a betrayal so deep that they overflowed. On that day his blood turned to a bitterness so foul his own soul splintered, its shards making him bleed black blood. He does nothing but drown in his own blood and sea of failures.

He hadn't known goddammit; he hadn't known it was going to end like that. Those glassy eyes were his biggest failure, drowning him in dark water. They haunt him, and they are the shadows that follow him day and night, whispering, begging, asking, demanding and biting him with itty bitty lion teeth.

.

.

* * *

Notes: Yes, well I hope you enjoyed and are wondering and questioning. I had lots of fun writing this. Lyrics at the beginning are from AFI's _Love Like Winter_


	3. Chapter 3

**III.**

 _Wounded is the deer that leaps highest  
And my wound it cuts so deep_

.

.

"I want you to protect her." Takao's voice was as free as the summers they never knew. But the leaves of Takao's voice were red, bright scarlet and running, leaving him looking like beautiful pale moonlight. The one they never got to see. Kai hated how Takao could sound like summer or spring. Kai would always be a barren winter, cold, harsh, and unyielding.

"Don't be stupid." Kai's voice was harsh like the winter wind, ripping at Takao's leaves and scattering them, leaving them dry and dead.

"Promise me, it's the only thing I'll ever ask of you." And just like that the scarlet ran, the leaves shook and Kai couldn't stand looking at Takao's wounds. They twisted in red with alabaster bones, grinning at him, mocking him. For all the fire that burned Kai and made him glow more beautiful than the sun, he could do nothing.

"She's our family." The leaves fell to the wind, scattering about the dingy grass, all yellow and brown leaving a faint trace of scarlet. "Do you promise?"

Kai nodded and he watched as summer fell from Takao's eyes, leaving them blank and dark like the coldest and darkest nightfall he had ever seen and felt. It wrapped around him and tightened around his heart, cutting strings and leaving a sad thing among ripped muscles.

Those words were a living, breathing thing, and he could hear them so clearly, and yet Kinomiya Takao had been dead for a long time, and Kai knew that there was nothing left but bones that continued to rot, all yellow and sour. Kai wished they were ashes and nothing more so that he could scatter them to the wind and never think about him and that damn broken promise he still held in his hands, in different shades of sharpness. They cut to the bones, but he couldn't let go. It isn't the worst of his failures.

The footsteps raised the ash and made him turn to see Yuriy stalking toward him. His sky eyes stared at him with too much intent, he growled.

Yuriy knew that Kai must have sold his soul to some devil; it is the only way to have it ripped out and leave a gaping hole for everyone to see. The darkness Kai carried around him was mighty fine and it only kept growing. It glided over Kai, seeping into him until he couldn't tell where the darkness ended and Kai began.

"What do you want?" His voice was full of so much vitriol that Yuriy wondered how he didn't choke on it.

"You know the dragon." It's was a statement that made the shadows around Kai skitter before they slipped and slithered toward him, ready to snare him and plunge their black fangs into his neck. They wanted him to bleed cherries, so that they could feast on them. Yuriy shuddered and moved back.

Kai's bark of laughter made his skin crawl with tiny worms; he could feel them moving inside of him, eating his flesh, drilling holes into his bones to make them hollow. It sickened him.

"The dragon?" His voice was like a whip, snapping at him and drawing blood and he wasn't done. "What does a bastard king who renounced everything, want with the dragon?"

Yuriy was sure he was bleeding all over, dripping clumps of scarlet color on the ash. Kai's eyes were narrowed, suspicion dancing at the corners. But Yuriy was tired of running and looking behind his shoulder every single fucking time. He was tired of the damn red world and its sickly colored moonlight. He was tired of the disintegrating buildings with eyes for windows; he was tired of the people with green skin. He was tired of being nothing but trash with the eyes of the old sky.

The smell of too sweet incense reached them, and he thought of Julia's bright dead eyes and her poison. Yuriy looked around the ash prairie. It was grey and yet in a few hours when the sun came up they would be gleaming in red.

"How did that devil rip your soul out, Hiwatari?" Yuriy smiled all sharp teeth and no mercy. "Must have been a very high price. You couldn't pay it could you?"

Kai snarled, "Piss off!" What did Yuriy know of the dark water and the shadows that followed him? What did he know of glassy brown eyes and red leaves? He had paid the price. His splintered soul was proof of that. Yuriy knew nothing but the stupid miserable pain he lived with.

Yuriy frowned. His eyes become cold and distant, clouds gathered in his sky eyes. "I'm leaving when the sun sets. I'll be by the temple. I know you want to see the Dragon, Kai. Though I can't possibly imagine why."

Kai recoiled from his words, they stung him, pierced the sad thing living where his heart once stood. He had seen the screeching thing, sinister with rose colored edges, a brilliant and terrible beauty. He had trusted the rose-colored edges once. When he thinks about those rose-colored edges he recalls the ruins of another broken promise. One more cutting than the first and more haunting, uttered in his own cold winter wind voice, _"I promise that you'll be safe. I'll come back for you."_

* * *

Sergei could see Boris from a distance. The sunlight glimmered in red. His canteen half full of murky water, it tasted like mud, but it was the only water there was. It hadn't rained in years. Sergei wanted to see the rain, even if it was more like acid than water, even if it burned his skin off. Anything would be better than the red haze and the rare grey days.

The city was bustling with torn life, rats scuttling around looking for living shadows. He had seen the nibbled bones of some kid in the back alleys along with a face missing eyes. The empty sockets seeing more than eyes ever could. A long time ago, the sight would have been enough to make him sick to his stomach. Nowadays, Sergei viewed everything with detached interest, trash could only offer so much.

He had lived too long under the red haze, had seen too many nights of yellow moonlight. His father had spoken about the time when the fields glittered in emerald and the moonshine was liquid silver and the sunlight was pure gold and pearls of light glinted alongside the moon. There had been no living shadows then.

But Sergei only knew trash; he only smelled death and rotting corpses. The decaying trees around them never died, as if they were suspended in time. Sergei wished they would finish rotting once and for all. Their leaves were black and brown, falling down like rain, dark murky rustling rain.

As he walked the cobbled streets of the city he looked at the buildings full of graffiti, and he did laugh then, graffiti could always offer him color—bright dazzling color. The shatter glass gleamed in the sun, a multitude of fucking red colors. It made him so fucking angry that he stepped on it, hoping to stamp out the damn red, the damn fucking red his dad bleed still talking about fucking white and cool rain.

"Lost your mind already? I thought you'd last at least a few more months." Boris' voice cut like a knife through his thoughts, chopping them into fine little pieces that couldn't come back together. He was glad for that.

"You wish."

Boris laughed, dark and hollow, it made Sergei wince. "Are we meeting Yura or what?" He wanted to get away from Boris and his laugh. It always made his heart twitch and lurch.

Boris regarded him silently before nodding. "At Saint's Tavern."

Sergei always thought that name ridiculous, what saint was there left in the land? All the angels had fallen long ago. There could be no saints in a land like theirs, not in a red world that kept bleeding and had pus masquerading as moonlight.

"Lead the way." He muttered sounding like a broken organ.

* * *

Emily stared at Julia's scarred hands. "So you were with him the whole night?" her raspy chains on concrete voice bounced off the grey walls of Julia's dirty apartment, pouncing on the brunette.

Julia hated Emily's voice. Always so brittle and careless, she imagined Emily's throat was raw and bleeding. It was a wonder she hadn't thrown up blood. "You guys were fucking the whole night, weren't you? Did you go find him after the march?"

Julia turned to regard Emily so sharply she could have cut her own head, "Yes and no. He left early this morning. I wasn't aware he was in the city until I saw Boris and Sergei. They had been looking for him. That was before I joined you in the march."

Emily turned from her to stand by the window, the stale air wafted in, caressing her cheek and hair, leaving them dry and cracking. "I saw Kai."

"Don't tell me the fucking bastard was marching."

Emily turned from the window and gazed at Julia's scarred hands before she answered. "No. But I think he was there, coiled in the shadows." She shuddered then, remembering that deep dank darkness around the boy. It was a living breathing darkness.

Julia scoffed, "He probably regrets not getting a chance to fuck her. Probably couldn't offer enough money." Her words were like whiplash, making Emily cringe.

Silence stretched before them as Julia's words fell between them, making a dent on the floor. Neither said anything to the other. Julia watched Emily. She knew Emily hated those chocolate brown eyes, hated that glassy surface that reflected everything but the girl's soul. But Emily hated herself more for not being able to do anything.

"She's nothing but an echo now, a horrible echo that I hear all the time bouncing around in my mind." Emily's whisper was like a thorn that pricked Julia's ears and made them bleed.

"Stop."

"I think that he hears her too. I hope her glassy drugged eyes haunt him, that they're the only thing he can see when he closes his eyes. I hope to the gods that he never finds peace!"

Emily's eyes glistened with iridescent crystals.

"Stop it Emily."

"You didn't see them Julia! You didn't see her eyes! Do you remember her eyes Julia? Do you remember them? Because I don't!"

Emily had never told her what had happened. Emily's hatred of the temple grew thereafter, festering like a wound that went untreated. That night, all Julia remembered was a scream, an agonizing scream that tore at the spidery cracks of her heart. A scream that she remembered long after in the deepest corners of the night, that and bright red blood that leaked into the wooden floor.

"You remember Max and I went to see if we could save her, maybe we could sneak her out. We both paid, gods it makes me sick just thinking about it. I found her."

Julia looked away into the cracks on the wall and the floor. Emily's voice was shaking, shaking like the boughs of trees in the wind. It cracked here and there, like the walls of her apartment.

"She had such an empty look and a sick twisted smile on her face. That's all I see Julia! That's all I see when I think about her. I don't see her beautiful smile anymore; I see a twisted drugged grin. I hate Kai Hiwatari, Julia. I hate him as much as I hate that temple and the priests. He _sold_ her."

Julia grimaced; she refused to look at Emily. She didn't want to see those iridescent crystals in her eyes. Julia remembered that night; the night Judy's vase was broken. The night Judy herself fell and broke, all her pretty blonde hair splayed like a bloody halo. Julia had wanted to put her back together. She had wanted to pick up the pieces and fit them like a jigsaw puzzle, never minding that it would ooze blood through the cracks.

"I know." She whispered. "I know how the oracles are used!"

"No, you don't. You didn't go. You don't know how it feels to look into the face of a friend you loved and admired and realize that you can't do anything anymore, knowing that she's become lost to the priests and their lust, all under the pretense of the gods." Emily's voice was like a rattlesnake.

"There are no gods. It's under the pretense of the King." Julia whispered, her voice cracked and fell into itty bitty pieces around her.

Emily cackled. She looked out the window again, feeling the stale air. She shook her head, her bright yellow hair crinkling. "So, what does the useless king want? Besides your body."

Julia looked at her then, thankful that the crystals in Emily's eyes were gone. Julia smiled all razor-sharp teeth. Emily shuddered like the last leaf on a tree, waiting to fall, all withered.

"He's decided to go to the Castle."

Emily rose a barely-there eyebrow, "To fulfill his destiny?"

"Or to die."

* * *

The tavern smelled like piss and cigar smoke and Yuriy could feel stares digging into him, snapping at him and piercing him. People had stared at him, at his eyes that held the endless old sky.

"Why would you ask Kai Hiwatari to come with us?"

He regarded Boris silently, his eyes sharp. "Because he knows the Dragon."

"Don't tell me you believe that bullshit." Boris voice rose, like the waves out at sea during a storm, angry and destructive.

"I have seen the darkness around him. It coils around him like a snake, tightening its hold on him day after day. He's not alive." Sergei shivered, feeling all warmth leave his body, leaving him feeling like a corpse.

"You can't help but wonder what a person like that has done." Yuriy shook his head at Sergei, his blood red locks shaking.

"I don't. I told him we were leaving, whether he comes or not is his choice and trust me Boris. Kai does indeed know the Dragon, and I'm willing to claim that he knows the Usurper as well." He could still feel the stares of people. All of them looking at him like he was _something_ , and he could basically hear their old hearts coming back to life beating slowly.

Sergei knew Yuriy was uncomfortable. All the stares of the people cut into his skin, leaving marks. "Is Julia coming?"

Boris looked at Yuriy sharply, his eyes asking a million questions. But he only shrugged, "Maybe." But all he could think about was Julia and her scarred hands running over his back and tracing the scars of his heart. His damn bloody scars that were like silvery thread, reminding him of who he was and what he was supposed to do, reminding him that he had royal blood in him and every time Julia ran her hands over them he would hate her. Hate her with so much passion he often wondered how he didn't burst.

"Yuriy," Sergei looked at this boy, who was older than him, he wasn't sure how old Yuriy was. He seemed too young, but he always knew too much that it unnerved Sergei whenever he stared at those sky eyes.

"We were looking for you yesterday. You disappeared the moment we came into the city. You went to find her, didn't you?" Boris never understood the fascination Yuriy had with the girl.

Yuriy stared at him and took a swig of his dark beer. He knew that Boris didn't understand why he cared about Julia, and even Yuriy winced and choked on his own spit at the word 'care' because he didn't care about Julia.

But he could trace the scars of her heart with his fingertips back to a boy who didn't care enough to love her back even though he made her fall in love with promises of rainbows and unicorns. Yuriy knew that he must have spoken to her about cotton candy clouds and he must have also given her bright words, which shone like the stars she had never known.

Yuriy couldn't offer Julia any of these things. He wouldn't. He didn't hold the land or the future in his power. He wasn't a hero, which was why he hated all the stares that drilled into him with hope and dreams because he knew they were just going to end up shattered like all the other dreams that littered the dirty streets and, in the end, they would just be fragments of glass that would shimmer in shades of red and sharpness. He was just a boy that destiny decided to fuck over. He was a coward. Julia hated cowards. No, he did not love or care for Julia, but she was a good screw.

"She'll do whatever she wants." He answered finally, taking another swig of his beer.

Sergei hid his smile in his beer pint. For all the falseness and insecurities that lived in Yuriy, the softening of the sky in his eyes didn't lie. But he couldn't decide if it was good or bad.

* * *

Julia watched as the sun began to drown, the moon would come up to breathe soon covering everything in sour moonlight.

"I'm going."

Julia's eyes narrowed as she looked to Emily, all body art and chains, always with the chains. She was in dark blue, with her hair pulled back into a severe ponytail. Shadows scurried over her features, retreating and hiding in her bones.

"Why?"

But silence greeted her, running over her like muddy water. The silence always mocked her. It made her think of her screams. She wrung her scarred hands.

"Because Max won't wake up until we're covered in silver moonlight." Her voice was hushed, echoing lost time and silly promises that spoke of escape and stars, of tightly held hands and secrets-hope-to-die.

Julia nodded, though she wanted to laugh because she was so fucking jealous. All she ever did was spread her legs to fake promises of love. She didn't learn after the first time. But she hasn't done that in a while. She was an echo of pleasure, often recalled and called upon.

When Yuriy had kissed her that first time, she had expected him to bleed from her acid mouth. But he simply drank from her and breathed into her. She had never felt such freshness in her life. Yuriy had been like a sweet glass of clean cool water, and her parched throat couldn't get enough of him. She wanted him to fill her to the brim and when he did, her bones had sung with pleasure.

He had taken her hands and bandaged them, ever so carefully that her eyes had misted, and salt water ran from them. She decided then that she would hate him, and she did, for he was the biggest coward of all.

"I'm going too." Her words shivered with emotion and felt tingly to her tongue.

* * *

Kai sat on the rooftop, and watched as the fluorescent lights turned on, drawing moths and other insects. The shadows limped around him, as if they knew what he was going to do. They bit at him and screeched. He watched the people wander here and there, stepping on pieces of forgotten dreams and hopes. But there was a murmur that was rising, and it spoke of eyes that were filled with the blue endless sky.

He scorned them. But the Dragon waited, hiding in the castle that rested over the cliffs. It rose every night, letting him roam the land. He could hear the rustling of red leaves in his mind and he cursed Kinomiya Takao. He could see Yuriy resting by the decrepit buildings near the temple. His eyes narrowed, in the end he didn't have anything to lose, not anymore. Not after he'd buried them.

He jumped.

* * *

Yuriy felt Julia before he even saw her. Bright black nails, black pants and boots, he stared at her eyes. Those bright dead eyes that always made his heart forget that it was dead. The sun had set, and he was waiting for Kai Hiwatari.

Julia stared at him, the silence between them seeking out her heart.

Next to her stood a girl with highlighter yellow hair, "You're tagging along?" he asked her, his eyes playful.

She smirked, "I want to see those healing hands of yours, dear King." Her gaze then settled on the temple, and Yuriy could see them blazing, lighting up the darkness around them, threatening.

Boris snorted. "You might be disappointed."

Emily smiled, all sharp edges, like Kai's darkness.

Julia saw him first and her gasp was soft like a butterfly beating its wings. Only Yuriy heard her because he was so damn attuned to her.

The darkness folded around them, cold and wet like stormy weather. It gave them chills and cut their bones in half. But Kai simply stared at them, looking like the quintessence of calm. But inside, Kai was a maelstrom of bitter emotions and regret, and they ran down like tiny rivulets of black water.

Emily bristled next to Julia, her chains hissing.

Julia simply stared at the incandescent light the boy gave off, all that sickening shine made her nauseous. Vaguely in the cobwebbed corners of her mind she briefly recalled her saccharine voice telling her that Kai shone as bright and beautiful as pale fire.

"Well," Yuriy began, looking at everyone with false confidence that was real enough. "We should get going."

"Do you even know the way?" Emily asked, her words grinding.

"We go west," He told her, his red locks swaying in the cold wind. "to the coast, to the Castle on the cliffs and to the Dragon beneath it."

.

.

* * *

 _Notes_ : So, how are you guys feeling? What do you think so far? Remember, feel free to ask questions if you're confused. I'll answer them as best I can. Lyrics at the beginning belong to Nightwish _End of All Hope_


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